criticism

The Problem With Being Cool About Sex

Illustration

"Porn consumption is now such a fixture of modern life—there is no chance the American government will take your smut away—that space has opened up to question its effects without being dismissed as a wannabe censor. Which isn’t to say that admitting to reservations about current sexual trends is easy." (The Atlantic)

Hilary Mantel’s Critical Snark

“The authorial persona on display in Mantel Pieces is confident to the point of arrogance. In a world where journalists write with a flinch in every sentence, that is deeply enjoyable.”

(New Statesman)

The Day Shall Come

"Once again, Chris Morris has demonstrated that “terrorism” is a label to tell us who we are allowed to find terrifying."

Review: Michelle Obama’s Becoming

“The political wife is still expected to be the embodiment of Virginia Woolf’s description of women, who “have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size”. On Michelle Obama’s memoir...

The Wild Duck is a Lie

“The Wild Duck is a lie.” On dealing with the darkness in the literary canon.